Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Minette
Henrietta Dreyfus Sterbcow (1916-1999) was a daughter of Morris Dreyfus and
Julia Hirsch Dreyfus of New Orleans.She
collected family photographs throughout her life, along with school and social
ephemera and other meaningful papers. In the late
twentieth century, she was a widow with no children, but wished for these items
to be donated to Tulane University. Her visually and culturally rich collection is now held in LaRC as Manuscripts
Collection 1068.

Her papers
include handwritten and typed correspondence, greeting cards, post cards,
poetry, legal documents, biographical and genealogical information, her own and her mother's New Orleans
school papers, invitations, announcements, keepsakes, synagogue programs, B'nai B'rith items, numerous family photographs including
matted or framed formal portraits created in New Orleans studios as well as
candid amateur family photographs, negatives, Carnival and masonic items, printed color
posters, advertisements, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings and other printed
items. A portion of the collection is devoted to the actor Lionel Adams (d.
1952), an uncle of Minette Sterbcow's whose original name was Moise Hirsch. The collection includes numerous photographs
of Lionel Adams in performance in the New York theater.Minette continued collecting everything about
her well-known uncle’s career, including the advertisements in which he
appeared as a model in his later years.Many of the
photographs are undated or uncaptioned, but the collection spans the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, as well as a variety of styles and subjects.

This
collection will be of interest to those doing historical research in Jewish
studies, genealogy, photography, New Orleans education and business, New
Orleans Carnival and other social activities, American theater, and advertising.